J. Hoberman Uploads the Future

A Critic Examines the Impact of the Post-Film Movie Era

A screenshot from the movie 'Coraline,' which is featured in an exhibit curated by film critic J. Hoberman at the Museum of the Movie Image.
Laika, Inc./Focus Features

By

Steve Dollar

Updated Aug. 23, 2012 9:38 p.m. ET

Spirited, thought-provoking and popping with fresh perspectives, J. Hoberman's new book, "Film After Film: Or, What Became of 21st Century Cinema?" (Verso), reframes the future of cinema in the nervous light of the past decade—that is, the first 10 years (or so) of the 21st century, a period marked by the proliferation of digital technology, the ubiquity of viral culture and the aftershocks of 9/11.

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J. Hoberman at the "Mortem" Film Society of Lincoln Center screening on Feb. 18 in New York City.
Getty Images

To mark the release of "Film After Film," Mr. Hoberman, who is 63, has curated a companion exhibit opening Saturday at Astoria's Museum of the Moving Image that will illuminate what the author calls "android" cinema—movies that employ a hybrid of digital and classical cinema technologies. In addition to video and computer installations, there will be a 15-film series beginning Sept. 15. For every computer-aided epic like Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park," there's a low-budget, DIY entry like "LOL," by mumblecore master Joe Swanberg.

Mr. Hoberman, the former chief film critic for the Village Voice, whose reviews now run twice a week at artinfo.com, spoke with The Wall Street Journal recently in a park near his TriBeCa home.

You've picked a lively lineup of films to illustrate the concept of "Film After Film"—movies that everyone has seen, like "Jurassic Park," and esoteric ones like Jean-Luc Godard's "In Praise of Love." It's not predictable.

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A screenshot from the movie LOL.
Everett Collection

And some of the installations are going to be surprising. There's one movie, "LOL," that was exhibited as a movie at the old Two Boots theater in the East Village. It's all about people and their laptops. We're showing it on a laptop. As someone who teaches film at a university, I know that's how students watch their movies now. It's a fact of life.

At the same time, it's interesting that degraded, lo-fi video technology is as much a component of this "film after film" era as the most sophisticated computer graphics.

That's what's fascinating about "Cloverfield," actually. It's predicated on both of them: the CGI monster and the home video. One of the points I make in the book is that, in some respects, even though digital technology has changed the whole ontology of motion pictures, by taking it out of photography, at least theoretically, it also has allowed motion pictures to be more themselves. I love old movies, and my preferred way to look at things is projected on a big screen. But I feel like a realist in terms of what's going on and I'm interested in how the technology develops in tandem with what artists decide to do.

There's a lot of talk about preservation of 35mm, but some repertory venues have even been hosting VHS nights. Something about the new technology has sparked a nostalgia for all kinds of formats.

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A screenshot from Jurassic Park, an 'android film' featured in an exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image.
Everett Collection

I don't think it's a coincidence that the sleeper hit last year was "The Artist." Or that "Hugo" has probably been the Scorsese film that cineastes felt the most passion for. There is this fascination with the archaic forms of the medium as something new is coming into play.

Like how Instagram is a newfangled "app" that mimics the look of classic cameras.

There was a panel discussion published among avant-garde filmmakers and they were talking about this desire now to create fake distressed footage. The stuff you had to put up with when you were working in 16mm or Super-8 or retrieving old found-footage—now you want that even though you don't have to have it. You're looking for a way to create those imperfections.

One of the most compelling entries in your book is Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," and how it exemplifies a trend you call "the New Realness" in the wake of 9/11.

It's a very significant film, and for reasons in addition to the fact that it was the most successful independent film ever made in the United States. I'm fascinated by it because it really set out to be something other than entertainment. This was much more important for the maker and for much of the audience. He might have made this movie at any period, but 9/11 was such a cataclysmic event for Americans and seemed to impact so directly on the movie industry. It raised all sorts of questions, considering that disaster movies were a staple and this kind of violence was a staple. It was an "event," and he was making a movie about an even bigger event, the biggest event—from his point of view, the greatest event in human history. If you read what was written and said about it, particularly by Evangelicals, they keep talking about the "realness," the reality of it. I see it as a movie. It's not an opening up to the sacred space for me. Many filmmakers who might have really disliked Mel Gibson, or not cared for the movie, were struck by this ambition, and this creating of an ordeal for the audience to participate in.

What's the most recent example?

One like it just opened last Friday: "Compliance." I see "Compliance" as one of those movies that's not pleasant to watch. You're really watching the passion of that poor girl who works in the fast-food place. There is something Christ-like about it.

It helps to put all the recent end-of-the-world movies, like Lars von Trier's "Melancholia" and Abel Ferrara's "4:44 Last Day on Earth," into context.

Even these end-of-the-world-movies, it's the same thing. The experience is more important than the narrative. The difference between those and "The Passion of the Christ" is "The Passion of the Christ" is painful to watch. It's about suffering. You have to participate in the suffering.

Speaking of dread, 3-D has struck fear in the hearts of many hard-core cinephiles. But in the book, you single out the stop-motion animated film "Coraline" as a real triumph.

My point was that these digital animations, there's not even a piece of paper. It's all happening in some virtual space. So that even when it's 2-D, it's an illusion. Adding 3-D to it is not all that compelling. With puppet animation, as in "Coraline," putting that in 3-D was very effective. It restored the original depth that the puppets had, rather than adding an imaginary depth to an already-imaginary thing. I respected the craziness.

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